The courage to change our minds.

Andy Haldane
CEO, the RSA

Change should be rooted in lived experience rather than the ‘warm bath of like-minded views’, argues the RSA’s CEO. RSA Journal issue 4 2024 discusses examples of ‘courageous communities’, from Lord John Bird’s experience of poverty and homelessness to Samantha Tauber’s attempt to build a better Earth from space.

It is often said that the hardest thing in the world to change is our own minds.

Large parts of the Western world have been pursuing an economic and social agenda that has left their electorates, especially the poorer ones, disenfranchised and disconsolate. That is not just my verdict; it has been the verdict of billions of people across the planet who have gone to the polls this year. The recent US election was merely the latest example.

Self-styled centrists and progressives have failed to speak to, or for, their core. That is a challenge to us, as RSA Fellows, as much as it is to politicians. Are we immersing ourselves in the warm bath of like-minded, perhaps even elitist, views rather than the cold shower of the lived experience of those furthest from power, learning and earning? And, if so, how do we reattach with those most marginalised in society?

rsa_journal_issue4_2024_lr_singles PDF, 5.71 MB

Few demonstrate an approach to change rooted in their lived experience better than Lord John Bird, founder of The Big Issue (and much else), our feature interviewee. As a young man, he experienced homelessness, poverty and prison first-hand and used this as the spur for change. His sobering diagnosis is that no major party has sought or brought a comprehensive programme of poverty prevention, as distinct from alleviation. He is right.

Are we immersing ourselves in the warm bath of like-minded, perhaps even elitist, views rather than the cold shower of the lived experience of those furthest from power?

The other articles in the current Journal provide further examples of courage in communities rooted in lived experience. Young Fellow and mental health advocate Zaynab ‘ZeZe’ Sohawan discusses her approach to tackling youth mental health issues – an approach informed by her own lived experience as a care leaver with psychosis and autism. Heather MacRae, FRSA, CEO of the Ideas Foundation, brings us the stunning photography and creative writing of young people documenting life in some of the poorest communities in north-east England.

Looking to the future, we interview the RSA’s new Chair, Loyd Grossman, whose glittering career has straddled so many of the core interests of the RSA, including as a businessman, musician, author and television personality. Finally, young Fellow Samantha Tauber offers us a futuristic perspective on the fortunes of our planet, viewed from space, courtesy of her digital avatar, VNCCII.

As hard as it is, perhaps it is time to change our minds. I hope this final Journal of 2024 helps stir us from our cognitive slumber, to wake-up and woke-down, to pull the plug on our warm bath of comfortable and familiar views.

It is important we do so before democracy dies of natural causes.

Andy Haldane is Chief Executive Officer at the RSA. 

Explore the latest RSA Journal features

RSA NextGen: ZeZe Sohawon

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VNCCII: Cosmic communities

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Wikimedia: people-powered

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RSArchive: liquid legacy

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In conversation with Lord John Bird

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Ideas Foundation: eyes wide open

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BookTok: a novel approach

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Loyd Grossman: secret sauce

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Community banking: shared interest

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Diana Springall: a stitch in time

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Last Word: gift

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